When we asked how players enjoyed each of the four gametypes (Vanilla Grifball, Grifball Evolved, Loaded Grifball, and Skyball), feelings were, of course, mixed. Overall, Skyball seemed to be a love-it-or-hate-it type of game, although the majority of players seemed to have come down solidly on the “love it” side. Loaded Grifball received a so-so reaction. Grifball Evolved and Vanilla Grifball were both enjoyed by almost everyone, although players seemed to enjoy the quick pace of the Evade loadout more than the slower Halo 3 stylings of Vanilla Grifball.

Here are some of the responses we received regarding Armor Abilities:

How do you feel about including Evade in competitive Grifball?

I think Evade would make a fine Armor Ability for tanks. It really adds a much-needed extra dimension to hammer battles.

I think evade definitely made the game more fun, but it also made it a little too fast paced. Grifball as we knew it was about being able to tank up the field and push your way to the plant. Here it was basically a free-for-all, where everybody was flying around using evade because its hard to control. The ball carrier always gets nailed from behind with the sword and is defenseless against evade. If evade is going to be in some sort of competitive grifball the ball carrier will have to be sped up so they at least stand somewhat of a chance if they break out in the open, the evade allows for too fast of a closing time on the ball carrier in the open field. But i would enjoy evade in competitive grifball with just a few tweaks.

No, i’m sorry but evade makes you go such far distances and the only way to compensate for it, is by slowing down the game. No.

I like the idea. It makes the pace of the game very fast, which forces players to make their decisions quicker.

How do you feel about including the Hologram in competitive Grifball?

I don’t know if it has a place. It’s fun to trick the other team, but I don’t see it being nearly as useful as Sprint or Evade.

I’m pretty impartial to it. As far as I could tell, I’d send out a hologram, and the hammer wouldn’t even show up in my holograms hands, so it was pretty damn pointless to have a blatant hologram like that.

Hologram is fine and it has it advantages but other AA’s seem more of a necessity than a hologram.

Interesting to see , but I don’t think it would work out.

How do you feel about including Sprint in competitive Grifball?

I think this is a must-have for runners. It makes the runner position more interesting and forces teams to make tactical decisions when determining which loadouts to use. Evade may be more useful for tank battles, but if no one on the team has Sprint, then the runner will be a sitting duck.

I think sprint is the best one to include in competitive grifball because when you think about it makes it more like football or rugby, like a real world sport. Using bursts of speed at critical moments to get past the defense or to punch through the offense to get to the ball carrier. Its easier to control than evade and it would be less of a hectic game and it would be easier to control and could potentially be used to make launches go further because of the increased speed of the ball carrier.

I feel that it is too unbalanced and should not be included.

Sprint is alright if you allow Evade as well. These two AA’s are easily the most useful, they allow players to move around the court so quick. Either allow both of these or neither to be a better game.

I’ve been pretty vocal about it on the forums, I am a staunch defender of Sprint NOT being in Grifball as it stands. It made whoever had it WAY too overpowered against others that didn’t have it. They were just running (literally) all over us, and it was really obnoxious and frustrating.

How do you feel about including Active Camo in competitive Grifball?

It’s useful as a radar jammer, but other than that I can only see it being useful for spawn camping. Even then, it tells the team that there is a person waiting on the plant.

I disagree with this too. Although it was fun. As a runner, you’re too shiny for it to be useful, and as a tank, well, you basically have to sit still to be really useful. Also, the radar jam is really annoying and near game breaking if used right.

I feel the same as Hologram that if used correctly, it would be a useful addition.

Active camo is fine. Can be very useful for jamming a ball runners radar or just surprise attacks. I don’t really see a problem with it but I don’t really see too many people using it.

Useless and disrupts the game heavily as a radar jammer.

How do you feel about including the Jetpack in competitive Grifball?

It’s good for lolzy fun, but I don’t think it’s a good fit for competitive Grifball.

It all depends on what everyone else has. It can be way too overpowered if nobody else has a Jetpack. I LOVED Jetpack Grifball the best though. It was by far my favorite of all of them.

Nah. For it’s own gametype it’s fine but kinda unfair.

No. Thinking in three planes is not something I want to do and I feel the offenders would have too much of an advantage in the air.

I’m all for it for social games and bum-rushes and side tournaments, but not for competitive league play.

If you alone were constructing the official Grifball gametype for Reach, what would it look like? What Armor Abilities would you include?

Grifball with the runner at 120% speed (players at 100%), with Evade and Sprint being the two armor abilities to choose from.

I would have to say maybe Evade only, or if there is a way to mix the 2, Evade and Sprint ONLY IF we can some how make it so the Sprinters are not completely overpowered like they seemed to be in Loaded.

If i was creating a game type for grifball i would most likely use sprint for all the players, increase the plant radius so you don’t have to be right on top of it. I would also try to [decrease] the gravity for the ball carrier so launches are a possibility.

I would love to tweak the settings to try and allow the runner to kill more than 2 people before dieing, but if the setting wouldn’t allow it, for whatever reason, then I would put Drop Shield in so that the runner could recover health and take more defenders on. As much fun as I had Dominating other teams with Evade, I would allow Drop Shield, Active Camo, and Hologram. If the popularity dropped, then I would go to only Sprint and Evade.

It would be the evade+sprint grifball where the bomb runner can only use sprint.

The bomb carrier, and only the bomb carrier would be allowed to sprint. Avg person speed would be 110, bomb carrier 120. If this cannot be obtained to make the game competitive and fair then…

No armor abilities at all, and make avg person speed 120, carrier 150, play on coliseum and find some way to get multi kills easier.

Warthogs. Maybe Scorpions or that helicopter thingy.

Thank you to everyone who filled out our survey! These responses will go a long way in helping us create more fun and interesting Grifball gametypes and maps.

Be sure to keep an eye on the Hub for more Grifball in Reach action–including more GRUNTs and the start of the next season of the GGL–the very first Grifball League in Reach.